


when did we get like this

by jacenbren



Series: Jason’s MCSM collection [9]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Female Character, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Chronic Illness, Emotional Baggage, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fight Sex, Fighting Kink, Fist Fights, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Masochism, Past Relationship(s), Petra-centric, Rare Pairings, Smut, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, of sorts, slightly unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25273819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacenbren/pseuds/jacenbren
Summary: It was innocent, at first.Well, about as innocent as beating the shit out of each other to mutually blow off steam could possibly get.
Relationships: Aiden/Petra (Minecraft)
Series: Jason’s MCSM collection [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831039
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	when did we get like this

**Author's Note:**

> It should be warned that neither Petra nor Aiden are very mentally healthy here and that you should absolutely not try this at home kids

It was innocent, at first. 

Well, about as innocent as beating the shit out of each other to mutually blow off steam could possibly get. 

Petra had always been wound tight, as Lukas called her sometimes. 

Aggressive. 

Violent. 

Trigger-happy. 

Jesse was enthusiastic and cheerful, but he preferred solving his problems with trickery and snark rather than his fists, Axel was too nervous to throw a punch around her and Olivia and Lukas were both terrified of confrontation. 

There was a person Petra knew, however, who was just as angry and hotheaded as her and had the biceps to match. 

Aiden Mercer, a convicted murderer recently released into Lukas’s custody. 

The only reason he wasn’t in a jail cell was because of his severe iron deficiency and an immune disorder he’d had all his life that got him sick often and very badly. Needless to say, prison had changed that man from an angry, heartbroken and jealous lover into something truly twisted and violent. His bossiness and desire for attention had long been replaced by a cold, calculated hatred that was visibly simmering inside him, just waiting for a shot, a latent chance to boil over. 

Aiden had changed, and if you looked at it from anyone else’s perspective, said change had been for worse. 

But Petra? Well, she’d found a kindred spirit. 

Both of them had scores that they’d probably never be able to settle. Petra had been wanting to get her revenge on Romeo for how he’d tortured her and attempted to destroy the world for two years now, but Jesse had given the former Admin a lesser sentence of hundreds of hours of community service, with the cloying optimism that Romeo had, in fact, changed for the better upon losing his powers. Aiden clearly wanted so badly to get back at Jesse, to finally get back at him for “stealing” Lukas and his chance at glory, but now he couldn’t. 

Both of them harbored guilt and jealousy and fear of abandonment. Lukas had been Petra’s only friend for the longest time, and just when she’d thought that she’d found some semblance of a family, Olivia and Axel left and Lukas and Jesse moved on to pursue their passions. Aiden had lost his lover to the man he hated, and subsequently his few friends. 

And both of them had had unbelievably shitty childhoods. When Petra’s parents had died in a car accident when she was eleven years old, her grandparents had blamed her for it and abused her for years, which had just fueled Petra’s anger issues and destructive behavior. She’d finally snapped and had landed in juvie after she’d wrecked her car driving drunk at sixteen in the middle of the night, and there had been hell to pay afterwards. Her grandparents’ abuse had finally been discovered and she’d been placed in the foster care system, where she’d taken up her line of work before she’d met Jesse, selling drugs and serving as the resident go-getter. 

From what little Petra knew about Aiden’s childhood, he’d had a dead mother, an alcoholic father, and several untreated mental illnesses to boot. 

And so they’d meet up. 

Usually it was in the Order’s training gym, sometimes out on the green or somewhere close outside town. 

Pretty much all they needed was some open space, maybe some soft ground. 

And Petra  _ always _ won. 

———

It didn’t matter that Aiden was half her size and could move twice as fast. 

It was past midnight and they were in the training gym, stripped down to pants and undershirts and wrestling furiously. It was at the point where Petra was starting to get tired, which meant they were mostly on the floor, struggling to land a punch or kick. 

And the round ended like it always did. 

“You gonna yield?” Petra snarled, feeling Aiden’s pulse drumming heavily on her forearm as she pinned him to the mats on his back, holding him down bodily. 

Aiden glared at her viciously. 

He strained against her grip, obviously caught in the dilemma of regaining his ability to breathe or preserving his dignity. 

His pulse got faster. 

“Tap out,” Petra warned him, gritting her teeth as he tried to punch her. “Or you’re gonna suffocate like this, asshole.”

Aiden hesitated just a moment longer. 

Then he frantically tapped her arm, and gasped loudly when she released him.

“Damn it,” he growled. 

“You brought that shit on yourself,” Petra retorted, dropping back into her fighting stance. “Another round, buddy.”

Aiden shot her a cruel smirk, giving her a glimpse of that silver filling that had replaced the tooth Lukas had punched out back in Sky City, popping his neck and his knuckles. “Oh yeah?”

But they both knew exactly who was going to win the next round, and then the one after that, and every round yet to come. 

Because Petra always won.

———

She was used to it. 

Most of Petra’s friends were guys, so she’d gotten accustomed to the occasional embarrassing boner. To her, at least, arousal was a normal bodily reaction, as much as sneezing or flinching was, and she was used to it. 

She was used to feeling hot and keyed up when she wrestled Aiden to the ground after forty-five minutes of punches and kicks being thrown. 

She was used to that heavy, throbbing dampness between her legs when she slammed Aiden into the mats again, straddling his thighs and the resulting physical pressure and heat of his body against  _ just _ the right spot. 

Like now, how she had him on his knees, arms pinned behind his back and his face pressed into the mat, panting. 

The temperature of the room had gone up significantly since they’d begun. 

“You done?” She growled. 

As much as she tried, Petra couldn’t keep the hunger out of her voice. Fighting one-on-one like this always turned her on, but Aiden never seemed to mind. 

“Maybe,” Aiden taunted, attempting to buck his hips and dislodge her. 

Petra bit down on her lip to keep from moaning so hard that the taste of blood filled her mouth when Aiden’s heel pressed up at just the right angle. 

She snarled and slammed him down hard by the back of his neck. 

Aiden’s whine made her inhale sharply. 

He usually got hard whenever they sparred like this, which wasn’t surprising. 

That man was such a masochist that he’d unknowingly orchestrated the chain of events that would ruin his own life. 

Then he tapped out and rolled into his back, panting heavily as he propped himself up his elbows. He was wearing a loose tank top, which gave Petra a very nice view of his biceps and shoulders, especially with his head flung back like that and the sweat shining on the hollow of his throat. 

Petra let herself growl a quiet  _ fuck. _

———

When did they get like this?

Petra often wondered how the universe had decided on how the batshit insane course of events that had brought her to this moment would play out. 

Was there something out there, something no one could possibly manage to comprehend, calling all the shots?

But she didn't care. 

She always won, and she liked it that way. 

“Geez,  _ another _ round?” Aiden remarked snidely. “You must really have something in you tonight, huh, Johnson?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Petra grunted. “Let’s go.”

———

How the fuck had this happened?

She’d been getting tired, Petra thought to herself, remembering her hunting trip earlier and how she’d had to chase down that elk on foot. 

Her exhaustion had led her to this. 

There had been a tiny miscalculation of the shifting of Aiden’s weight, a minuscule slip-up in her assessment of how well she’d pinned his legs. 

And somehow she was here. 

On her back, Aiden pinning her wrists above her head, straddling her waist.

It was at the point where he started to get reckless, too, his punches going wide from being over-anticipated. 

At the point where they were both getting tired and starting to hurt. 

Aiden’s breath was coming in gasps, surprise melding with the unbridled fury and frustration in those brilliant, emerald eyes only inches from Petra’s. 

And he was hard,  _ so _ hard. 

From the way he was holding her, pinning her hips by sitting on them, she could feel the bulge in his pants shoved against her groin. 

It felt  _ too _ good. 

Petra snarled and tried to throw Aiden off, but shoving her hips up backfired. 

Miserably. 

Aiden slid backwards, his eyes blowing wide win shock and pleasure as he slotted perfectly between her thighs. 

“Let me up,” Petra whined, clenching her teeth as Aiden tried to resituate. 

“Tap out,” Aiden huffed. 

He flashed her his cruelest smirk yet, his expression dazed and smug with pleasure as he rocked lightly against her. 

Even though it felt so good, it somehow rubbed her the wrong way. 

Petra yelled and reared upward on impulse, slamming Aiden aside and cuffing him sharply in the head. 

Aiden swore, panting hard and flushed, a rivulet of sweat running down his neck. 

It was uncomfortably quiet as they left the gym. 

But she’d won this time, Petra thought to herself as she found herself imagining that delicious heat of Aiden’s muscled body draped over her again, except without their clothes in the way. 

She  _ always _ won. 

———

Aiden was angry tonight. 

Petra knew it because of how sloppy he was, how they weren’t even twenty minutes in and his lip was already busted, bruises that would have to be explained tomorrow blooming under his skin. 

Not to say that Petra  _ wasn’t _ feeling something itchy herself tonight. 

She felt… distracted. 

She didn’t know, she didn’t understand how it had become this, no longer just blowing off steam in the sense of anger, but a hot, heady desire that wanted to let loose in a very different manner. 

Aiden’s fist caught her in the nose. 

Petra yelled in shock, stumbling and clutching her face in agony as the taste of iron flooded her mouth. 

She heard Aiden hiss. 

Then he was on her and they were wrestling on the floor, and before either of them realized it Petra had a leg hooked around Aiden’s hip and she was straddling him again. 

How the hell had they gotten so dirty and desperate, she thought inwardly. 

And Aiden was hard and pressing hot against her crotch, and when he tried to struggle Petra was so distracted by her heavily bleeding nose that she moaned. 

She actually  _ moaned. _

Something in the air shifted, like the last remains of the barrier between them had just been smashed into pieces. 

And then they were kissing, hot and messy and drowning in heat and depravity, the taste of bloody iron and fiery lust choking them like a serpent. 

“Petra!” Aiden wailed. 

Something in his voice, how needy and debauched and  _ wrecked _ Aiden sounded, ripped a feral growl from Petra’s throat. 

What the hell were they doing?

When had the tables turned, when the hell did they get like this?

Aiden was frantically bucking his hips against her thigh, hands everywhere, squeezing her ass, gripping her biceps, pulling her hair, and finally Petra gave in to the heat and yanked off her shirt. 

Aiden seemed to get the message. 

He was fumbling with her bra, finally yanking it loose, wasting no time in getting it off before reaching up to touch and grope and squeeze her breasts. 

“Fucking hell, what’re we doing?” Petra gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. 

“You said it yourself,” Aiden panted against her throat. “Blowing off steam.”

That was enough to make her moan as Aiden moved down and took one of her nipples in his mouth, suckling and licking so sloppily he was drooling. 

But Petra  _ had _ to win. 

She scrambled to undo Aiden’s belt, then her own, yanking her pants down to her knees in record time. 

Aiden was still preoccupied with lapping smears of blood off her bare breasts, and how his eyes flew open and he gasped when she reached under his waistband was absolutely magnificent. 

The sight of Aiden, the Scourge of Sky City, a man who was normally so well put together a complete mess was a treasure Petra would covet. 

“Please,” he choked out. “Let me—“

“Ssshhh,” Petra cut him off, drawing him in for another hot mess of a kiss. 

With a frustrated snarl, Aiden reared up. 

And Petra, who’d been caught completely off-guard, suddenly found herself on her back, Aiden pinning her legs apart and holding her arms. 

She yanked her arms free effortlessly, but instead of shoving Aiden away, she wrapped them around him. 

Aiden could have this, she thought. 

Just this once. 

And then he was sliding a hand between her legs and touching her, fumbling roughly and frantically and Petra choked back an embarrassing whimper. 

It had been too long. Much too long since someone else had touched her. 

She dragged Aiden in and kissed him hard enough to bruise before she finally gave in and licked the sheen of sweat off the elegant curve of his neck, the salty flavor especially rich at the hollow of his throat close to his pulse point. 

It felt like a drum under Petra’s lips. 

“Oh god,” Aiden choked out, burying his face in her neck. “Petra, I—“

“Less talking and more fucking, you asshole,” Petra gasped, clamping a hand tight over his mouth. 

Aiden grunted in acknowledgement. 

It felt like mere seconds before she came, crying out loudly and sinking her nails into Aiden’s shoulders as he moaned and collapsed on top of her, her breath coming in ragged gasps. 

“Fuck,” she groaned. “That was…”

Aiden suddenly let out a weak snort, trying to wipe the blood off his lips. 

“I win,” he purred in her ear. 

———

Petra always won. 

No, that was wrong now, she thought as they staggered from the training gym to her apartment, battered and bruised and drunk on each other’s bodies. 

Aiden won sometimes, ever since that fateful night when she’d let him. 

When all this pent-up anger and tension and pain had dragged them together like magnets, turning them into a pair of desperate hedonists who hadn’t been loved in a long, long time. 

(Well, Aiden had been in love with Lukas, but that time was long gone.)

They were both bleeding from their fight, split lips crashing together furiously as they slammed the apartment door shut. 

Aiden’s nose was probably broken, and Petra had bitten her tongue badly enough that it was tender and bloody. Their hot, open-mouthed kisses tasted like iron. 

And she loved it. 

Okay, Petra should’ve been concerned that she was having the best sex of her life with her best friend’s ex (who was also a convicted murderer currently on strict probation in lieu of a jail sentence due to medical reasons), and while adrenaline was running high after an impromptu “training” session. But the important thing was that Aiden was giving her the attention she’d been losing from the others as they grew apart, and he seemed to get it. 

He seemed to  _ understand, _ Petra thought as they scrambled out of their clothes and landed on her bed. 

Aiden was still bleeding, little specks of blood landing on the pillowcase as they frantically clutched each other and grinded their bodies together. 

Petra winced. She’d need to wash her sheets. 

“Fuck,” Aiden groaned, giving himself a few wanton strokes as Petra fumbled with her nightstand drawer and groped around for a condom. 

She swore under her breath, finally getting a grip on the packaging. 

Aiden took it from her and ripped it open, rolling it on and giving her a desperate look, still breathing hard, the bruises from their match earlier making floral patterns on his skin and blood drying on his upper lip. 

He was a mess, and it was a good look on him, if Petra dared say so herself. 

Sure, she wasn’t exactly one to talk, given that she probably looked just as wrecked as he did, but she didn’t care. 

All she cared about now was lowering herself onto him, gasping for breath. 

When did they get like this?

The taste of sweat and residual blood on Aiden’s skin was intoxicating, better than any drug Petra had tried before. So was that hot, satisfying feeling of being filled up as he bottomed out, and every single sensation that followed. 

“Give it to me,” Petra growled, gasping as she slowly pulled back. “I want you.”

“I fucking love this,” Aiden moaned, wrapping his arms around her waist, skimming the hard muscles of her stomach and thighs. “Damn it, I love  _ you.” _

That caught Petra off-guard. 

No one had ever told her that before, she realized. Not her grandparents, not any of her friends or the countless men and women she’d slept with over the years. 

She’d never had real experience with the concept of love, platonic or otherwise. 

How had this happened?

How had late-night sparring matches gone from punching each other to having rough sex on the floor to this?

Aiden didn’t mean it. 

Did he?

“You don’t love me,” Petra blurted breathlessly, running her hands up Aiden’s broad chest. “Nobody does.”

Aiden faltered. 

There was suddenly fear in his eyes, alarm and distress and guilt. 

“Petra, stop,” he choked out, shoving her off him so quickly that she almost fell backwards off the bed. 

“Ow!” She hissed, clutching her probably bruised hip. “What the hell, Aiden—“

“I’m sorry,” Aiden mumbled, reaching for his clothes. “I’m sorry, I should’ve known there were no feelings in this. I—“

“No!” Petra yelped. 

She cursed under her breath. 

“No, no,” she corrected hastily, grabbing Aiden’s arm. “Aiden, I didn’t mean it that way, I never said I didn’t like you!”

Her heart felt like it was breaking. 

To tell the truth, she didn’t know what this feeling towards Aiden was. She’d never felt it before, and she’d been hoping to ignore how she’d suddenly been wanting to see more of the asshole who’d beat the shit out of her friends, tried to kill them, and killed countless unarmed civilians on his rampage. 

Wanting to see Aiden happy, wanting to be with him, was a frustrating and confusing feeling, to say the least. 

“Well then what  _ did _ you mean?” Aiden demanded, something cold and angry settling quickly into his voice. “I’ve already been through enough, and I’m not letting you toy with my emotions—“

“I meant that no one loves me,” Petra said simply, her voice low and tense. 

Awkward silence. 

“I’m not really their friend,” she confessed, her chest tightening painfully with every word. “We’ve grown apart. The rest of the Order have new lives, and they have each other. I’m the fifth wheel, and I’ve always been that. My whole life, nobody’s ever told me they loved me, and I don’t think anyone ever has.”

Aiden just stared at her in horror. 

“No one’s ever loved you?” He blurted in astonishment. “How in the hell? What’s not to love about you?”

“Oh, you could name some shit,” Petra muttered sarcastically, pulling her shirt back on. “I’m reckless. I’m blunt and rude. I’m intimidating. I’m not good at keeping promises. I used to only care about money in my pocket and not the moral consequences of my actions, and I’ve killed people in cold blood. I’m generally just a horrible person, okay?”

The words hurt to say, but they were true. 

Too true to deny it. 

“No, no, no!” Aiden yelled, pain in his voice, his fists clenching. “Are you dumb, or are you just fucking special? You are a fucking  _ saint _ compared to me and you still give me the time of day! The only reason I’m not in jail is because I’d probably catch some infection and get so sick that I fucking die and they don’t want me getting the easy way out!”

It was silent again. 

“You wanna know why I did it?” Aiden snarled, tears brimming in his eyes. “Do you want to know why Sky City happened, Petra? It was supposed to be my last hurrah! I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory and show everyone that I wasn’t just some lowlife living in the Order’s shadow! That’s why I burned down the fucking city and released all those monsters, Petra! I knew nobody would ever want me so I had to do something drastic to prove I was just as capable of changing the world forever as Jesse was!”

There was a brief pause as Aiden’s words slowly sunk in. 

“I knew Jesse was a better swordsman than me,” Aiden continued, visibly shaking, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. “I wanted to die. I wanted him to kill me. But he fucking spared my life and they put me on suicide watch and every day in this fucking world makes me sick and everyone hates me and you’re the only one who’s been giving me any kind of reprieve from this and if you hate me too just come right out of fucking gate and say it, Petra! Say it to my fucking face that you only were fucking me because you were bored or whatever and let me suffer! Let me die! I can’t keep going anymore, I can’t fucking keep doing this if you really hate me like everyone else does!”

“I don’t fucking hate you!” Petra spat furiously, grabbing his hands. “I’ve never felt like this before but I love you too!”

It was painfully silent. 

And then Aiden slumped forward onto her shoulder, convulsing with hysterical sobs, holding onto her like a lifeline. 

His whole body was shaking like a leaf. 

Petra began to truly realize the meaning of what she’d said, and then she started to cry as well, but silently. 

When did they get like this?

———

Petra  _ almost _ always won. 

Sometimes she lost, on her back with Aiden between her legs, gasps and wanton moans slipping out as he fucked her hard and fast. 

Sometimes she won, taking him in her mouth and sucking him off until he was almost screaming her name. 

Sometimes it ended in a tie, both of them too exhausted for anything. 

Petra preferred not to question how they’d gotten like this, laying on their backs in a grassy field, battered from their sparring match earlier, gazing up at the cloudless night sky. 

Aiden’s head was resting against her shoulder, their bruised fingers entwined. 

They were both a mess. 

They were both struggling for a sense of belonging, for a shred of joy to cling to. 

That’s why they were out here, staying in Petra’s cabin, way out in the forest with no method of contact with the outside world except for an old rotary phone and a radio, with no one but each other. 

It was a small blessing in the curse living in this world had become for them. 

_ Almost _ a silver lining. 

No, fuck silver linings, Petra thought to herself. That saying was bullshit. Pain was pain, regardless of what optimists said. 

She and Aiden were no optimists. 

Aiden rolled over and pressed a kiss against her jaw, scooting up so he could give her a thin smile. 

“Hey love,” Petra murmured. 

Aiden was short, adorably short, she thought to herself, resting her hand on the small of his back. The guy barely cleared five foot ten, whereas Petra had always been tall for a girl and towered over him at six foot two. 

“M’bored,” Aiden grumbled. 

Petra chuckled, dabbing some of the dried blood off his forehead from the small cut there she’d made from punching him there a few times. 

“You sure?” She asked. “You know I’m gonna beat you this round, baby.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Sure you will.”

Petra couldn’t help laughing as she pulled herself to her feet, helping Aiden up and then dropping into her stance. 

How they’d gotten like this, she had no idea, but she did know one thing. 

Petra  _ almost _ always won. 


End file.
